your place in my cosmos
by saradonic
Summary: Once he was just Deslaurier to the both of them and Danny liked things that way. (Really though, he sees it coming.)


_I haven't written a fanfiction in so long, but Mindy and Danny tear me to pieces. And I don't think I even need to begin with the inarguable talent that is Mindy Kaling._

_Also, the Brendan storyline really intrigues me, and the next episode (in three weeks, boo) is sure to have Danny/Mindy/Brendan friction! Anyway I sort of decided to retrace the roots of that relationship and I noticed it built continually pretty much since the first episode they introduced him up until currently and I thought if I noticed the signs, Danny probably did too, even if he never expected her to actually act on them. Anyways, I'll stop talking now and let ya'll get to reading._

* * *

It's true; most people would consider the Deslaurier brothers to be…_attractive_. Not Danny by any means, but women in general seem to consider them a couple of good looking guys, so Danny isn't sure why he's so surprised when Mindy admits that she does too.

When she'd stormed in and saved the day after they started losing all their patients to those charlatans, Danny expected a lot of things. He imagined the Deslauriers would talk circles around her the way they had to him, or that she'd make a loud, unnecessary scene. It was a little of both, but with the added confusion of Mindy not only admitting she'd found them attractive, but the elder Deslaurier also admitting he'd love to _educate_ her.

And as if that on its own wasn't bad enough, Mindy had then announced she found he and Jeremy not as handsome, which okay, shouldn't have bothered him as much as the other things, but it had, and he'd never felt more like a chump than when he'd turned to Jeremy and asked for reassurance that they were indeed the better looking pair.

Yes she'd gotten the majority of their patients back, won the verbal war against the quacks upstairs and had proven he and Jeremy wrong in a big way, but Danny couldn't help but wonder that night as he'd prepared dinner for himself, how much longer her inevitable meeting with the guy could have been delayed, if he'd just listened to her ideas in the first place instead of doing it his own way and letting the shit hit the fan.

After their initial confrontation, Danny isn't sure if he's imagining it, but the guy seems to come up more and more in their daily lives.

The fifth floor isn't somewhere any of them venture very often, but running into one another can sometimes be unavoidable. They share a building, a mailing address, an elevator, all three of which often equate to not-so-amiable run-ins with one another from time to time.

Danny can remember clear as day a week and a half after the Holistic Birth Center fiasco when he'd climbed into an elevator Mindy was already occupying. It was before they were really friends, so he'd barely given her a once over and just as she began chatting away about her weekend, just as the silver doors were about to slide shut, a thick hand had poked through and the older Deslaurier brother entered, smoothing out the back of his hair with his unoccupied hand. He must have had to run to catch it, but he barely looked out of breath and he certainly wasn't perspiring in the slightest—another thing Danny could add to the checklist of reasons why he hated him.

"Doctors," he drawls with a smile once he's situated inside. Danny, completely ignoring him, goes back to reading his newspaper. But from his peripheral he sees that Mindy, who is avoiding Deslaurier's eyes in that snooty, nose-in-the-air way she sometimes uses even on him, seems to be fighting not to say something.

This on its own was nothing new or worrisome. As a rule Mindy over spoke, and any time she wasn't specifically talking she used to think about the things she could be saying. Danny does notice however, his eyebrows drawing together dangerously at the occurrence, that Deslaurier does not hesitate in the slightest to give Mindy a once over. In that universal, nearly-unnoticeable-if-done-correctly gesture of attraction, Danny watches with pinched brow as the enemy of the practice slides his eyes across Mindy's figure, dark hair falling around graceful shoulders and the too-loud yellow dress belted at her tiny waist, past her calves wrapped in sheer black tights, all the way down to her closed-toe heels.

When the bell dings softly and Mindy flounces off with an audible huff, Danny watches as Deslaurier lets his eyes linger on the curve of her back side as it bounces away from the both of them. After a terse moment, the same hand that had gotten the quack in slides between the slowly closing doors and he turns to look at Danny with raised eyebrows.

"Your floor," he says with a pedantic little smile, in what most people would assume is a friendly voice. But Danny thinks about the glean in his eye when he'd taken in the full-figure of his coworker and he doesn't hesitate in the slightest when, on the way out, he bumps his shoulder hard enough with Deslaurier's to make him stumble backwards a little.

The physical aggression helps, but the knot in Danny's stomach remains tight for almost a whole week, and any time he gets into an elevator with Mindy, he jabs his thumb into the door close button immediately.

* * *

A couple months later, he has the misfortune of running into the dick again, and of course as his luck would have it, Mindy would have to walk in at just the wrong moment.

It isn't so bad at first. They banter back and forth for a moment and it's one of those rare occasions when Mindy's on his side for a little bit. It's nice.

Then,

"Hi Mindy."

Soft, smug, his face lifts up in a small smile as he raises his eyes to meet hers and just for a single insecure moment Danny does see the appeal of him, quiet voice and kind eyes, confidence that radiates off of him in waves.

Thank god though, that Mindy does not.

"Don't "hi" me, Deslaurier."

"Yeah, don't "hi" her." He feels a little like a caveman as the possessive words leave him, but he can't help it, the guy pisses him off.

What right does this asshole have to come into his office and say hello to Mindy, and to say hello to Mindy like _that_, soft and slow and interruptive, breaking away from their very important conversation about the state of his ceiling to address Mindy Lahiri as a separate entity, in a league all her own. He wasn't a doctor and he wasn't her friend, he had no reason to address her at all.

The words "sham" and "midwife" also come up, proving to Danny once again how very much she abhors the two of them, and it's like a little bit of weight is slowly being lifted off his chest at her every antagonizing word towards them.

She doesn't see the appeal, he thinks with relief, and is on some obscure level so grateful for that.

As it were, Mindy Lahiri had a very bad habit of being attracted to men, and having those same men gravitate right back towards her. He thinks about her impressive slew of boyfriends, who, although borderline moronic, were never very bad looking and could at least afford to buy her dinner at a fancy restaurant while they were still interested.

What Danny means is, if Mindy wanted Deslaurier she could have Deslaurier, so thank god for her not wanting him.

He breathes a heavy sigh when the brothers finally rise with a final charming comment and see themselves out. And Mindy, not even glancing once at their retreating backs, turns to him with dark round eyes and asks if he'll trade her computer mouse with his.

Maybe that's why he's so blindsided on her birthday.

It isn't that Danny doesn't acknowledge Mindy's level of attraction, or the fact that it's pretty clear Deslaurier probably acknowledges it too, it's just.

It's just he never expected anything to actually _happen_ between them, and who would? Deslaurier was an enemy of the practice, an arrogant douche, he was against _epidurals_ for Christ's sake, he was a damn moron, and there Mindy was on her birthday, kissing him.

He isn't entirely sure how to react at first. It feels somehow like a betrayal, perhaps the largest one since Christina's and he wonders numbly, hobbling back to the waiting room, _how fucking long has this has been going on_.

He wins Alex over by the end of the night, which should make him pretty happy but he makes sure to seat himself on the opposite side of Mindy so he doesn't have to see her lying face. Alex's dark hair falls over his shoulder as she helps him key her number into his phone, but even as Danny takes in the clear scent at the hollow of her neck, he can't help it when his fingers tighten around his phone every time he hears Mindy's high-pitched voice above all the others.

How long had she just been pretending to hate Deslaurier? How much of anything she said was true and how stupid of her not only to try and hide it, but to wrap herself around him at a hospital full of her friends and coworkers.

He promises himself as he stalks home that night, fisting his hands deep in his pockets and trying to return Alex's covertly sexual texts with enough charm to keep her interested, he promises himself he's going to bring this up to her first thing Monday morning, promises himself he won't let her off the hook for this one, will stay angry at her for this one. This isn't just some old situation she regularly gets herself into, this was her yukking it up with Brendan freakin' Deslaurier, and he wouldn't let it go on unpunished.

Somehow though, it almost does. Alex is pretty easy, and by the next night she's already over at his apartment, sipping wine on his couch. The sex with her is almost a type of therapy; his anger and frustration and confusion over the whole Mindy/Deslaurier dilemma is almost forgotten in Alex, who takes everything he gives and seems to love every second of it. She's so meaty in his hands, fiery and vivacious between his sheets, and she has these stories about college-aged Mindy that make him laugh and laugh.

And when Monday finally does come around, though Danny still has his mind set on confronting her, most of his anger seems to ebb away when Mindy pokes her head into his office and asks him why Morgan is teaching Betsy how to do squats in the waiting room and by the way, would he be totally against sitting next to her on the way to the Santa Fe conference because she's not sure she can handle Jeremy or Morgan for that length of time.

Also, over the weekend he's had to think it over, some part of Danny realizes his confronting Mindy about Deslaurier may come out the wrong way and inadvertently send her the wrong message.

He tries to put himself in Jeremy's shoes and wonders how the idiot would react to the news of Mindy and Deslaurier getting it on behind their backs, and understands that while he might be annoyed or surprised by it, Jeremy would certainly not be as pissed as Danny was.

So he doesn't mention it to her. He lets the image of Mindy cradled beneath Deslaurier's fat skull flicker out and die inside his head.

_Who cares_? He thinks, _not me_.

And for a few weeks, he thinks he maybe even believes it.

They don't have any run-ins with the midwives for a really long time, and Alex can do this thing with her tongue that makes him shudder like a little girl and Mindy starts dating this Christian guy, which must mean she's ended things with Deslaurier, right? _Right_?

He really thinks he's over it, but then Alex want to have a little get together, and she wants to have it at his place, and Danny looks at her, her dark eyes and great stories, and thinks yeah, he'd maybe be okay with that.

When she gets to talking about the guest list though, Danny realizes how much he doesn't want Mindy at his house, or more specifically, how much he doesn't want Mindy at his house with one of these chumps she dates, Deslaurier included.

"Danny, she's like one of my best friends."

"Yeah, I know, the tier, but look I just don't want her in here poking around all my stuff."

He doesn't have an excuse beyond that, and if he tells her the truth it might get her mind wandering down the wrong road. Not that there would be any reason for her mind to go wandering in that direction, but you know women, they take small things and make huge issues out of them and Danny would much rather avoid that particular confrontation.

Alex raises her eyebrows and sighs through her nose, giving him a flat look. "I thought you guys were cool now? And if she finds out she's going to be like, so pissed."

Her face goes all coquettish then and she leans across the distance separating them and drapes herself across his lap. "C'mon, I'll make it worth your while," she mutters, pressing moist kisses against his neck, but Danny isn't budging on this one. He'll be damned if he ever lets one of Mindy's asshole boyfriends come anywhere near his home.

"She won't find out," Danny tells her gruffly, and when she makes a whining sound against his throat, he silences her with his mouth and that seems to be the end of it.

Of course, it never really is.

"You cherry-pick these examples," she is saying in her usual exuberant and over expressive way just a few days later, she's angry she wasn't invited to his party and even more so of his truthful explanation why. Danny doesn't know if it's from his frustration at her inviting the entire office over to his place or the resentment from seeing Deslaurier for the first time in weeks, watching him say hello to Mindy like that again, but the third example spills forcefully from his mouth without his accord and hangs between them in the air for a long moment.

"Deslaurier."

She gapes like a fish. Literally, her mouth falls open and closed again and she is so obviously speechless at having been caught. He crosses his arms over his chest and talks over her denial.

"I _saw_ you at the hospital with him, you were going at it. It was gross, and unprofessional."

"Okay, we hooked up once. And then a couple more times…but then only _once_."

"You guys are sneaking around behind my back, _you_ and with this enemy of the practice, what do you guys do, go home and make fun of my piano playing?"

His insecurity is nothing new, at least not to himself. He thinks about the last year or so he and Christina were still married, when he'd come up behind her and pull her to him, hold her as close as possible and tell her he loved her more than anything. She'd say it back, pat him consolingly on the hand, but Danny could hear the lack of affirmation in her voice and when she slipped away from him a second later, he always had to stop his hands from shooting back out and grabbing her again.

This conversation had taken a completely wrong turn. It wasn't about him, it had nothing to do with him, it was about the dicks Mindy dates and the reasons why they couldn't come within ten feet of his place. He had to backtrack before she got the wrong idea.

"Oh come on Mindy, my piano playing sucks. I don't like it, and that's why you weren't invited."

He storms out of her office, feeling like an idiot, which is pretty much the opposite of how that conversation was supposed to go. _She_ was supposed to feel like the idiot; he was supposed to feel vindicated.

He notices his hands are starting to sweat, and can already feel the damp perspiration gathering in his pit of his arms. He lets out a low groan as he collapses in his chair and buries his face in his hands, wondering how she would interpret the things he'd said to her and thrillingly, what it could lead to.

* * *

Danny though, seems to forget who he's dealing with.

Mindy calls him not two hours later to announce she'd be attending his party and she'd be bringing yet another clown, proving that his earlier words had little to no effect on her.

Danny doesn't know whether to be grateful or irritated.

When she shows up to his place with a guy who looks like he just stepped out of the pages of an Abercrombie catalog, Danny's not sure quite how to react. He's not Deslaurier at least, and he's decent on the piano and Mindy just looks so nice in that simple black number, wandering around his place like she belongs there that he almost forgets to be annoyed at Parker asking him where the bathroom is.

Later, she works her way into his bedroom and then his shower and Danny would be lying if he said he'd never imagined it before. Although admittedly, the circumstances were slightly different and she was usually wearing much less clothing.

"Well just don't tell Deslaurier," he intones, holding her eyes and watching as she deflates slightly at the mention of him.

He doesn't know why he keeps bringing it up, but his ears burn at the thought that Mindy now has another thing—his freaking dandruff—to add to the list to reasons why he's lamer than Deslaurier.

"Okay," she breaks eye contact with him and fixes them somewhere near his showerhead. "I'm sorry that I lied to you about Brendan. For your information, the reason I didn't tell you is because he treated me badly, and I was embarrassed."

Really, he hadn't expected her to own up to it, so for a moment there are only a few words floating around in his head. The first two are _treated badly _and the third, more importantly, is _Brendan_—casual, intimate, friendly, first-name basis—Brendan.

He wonders if she screamed it out while they were having sex.

"He's an idiot for treating you badly." He tells her, which is a fact.

Vaguely, he realizes this is the first time he's ever heard Mindy say his first name, and finds he hates it. Once he was just Deslaurier to the both of them, and Danny liked things that way.

The anger he feels at the idea that he did something to hurt Mindy is only overshadowed by the soft, bitter realization that falls over him a second later:

It may be over between Deslaurier and Mindy, maybe just for now, maybe forever, but his place in her world had shifted. He was no longer just Deslaurier, the midwife, the guy upstairs with the sham operation they needed to keep their patients away from at all costs. He'd been upgraded to Brendan, the guy who got to put his mouth on her mouth, the guy who got to see her naked on multiple occasions, see her in the most vulnerable and intimate way possible and whether or not it would ever happen again didn't matter as much as the fact that it had.

They bicker for a few moments more, but when Mindy, as always, leaves him behind more disoriented than he had been before she'd opened her mouth, he can't help but think about his own position in her life, how it's exactly the same as it was when they'd first met, and probably always would be.

All at once, he feels so tired; he thinks he can barely stand. He wants to go back out there, announce the party is over and send everyone home. He wants to brood all alone in his bedroom and drink until he passes out.

He's still holding her wine glass though, and just as she's about to pull his bedroom door open, she seems to suddenly remembers that fact.

She turns back around to face him and reaches out for it, wrapping her fingers around his in the process and Danny, for all his angry, antisocial _don't-touch-my-stuff-don't-touch-me_ behavior, feels a shocking rush of warmth spread through him at the look and feel of her fingers splayed across his own.

"You wanna hand my drink over, buddy?" She's smiling; looking at him curiously, and it's her eyes, so dark and so deep, her head tilted to the side, her mouth cracked into half a grin.

_I want to kiss her_, Danny suddenly realizes, the thought rushing in and out of every fiber in his body, the thought is so strong, so overwhelming, he thinks for a second he may have actually done it, leaned across the inches and miles separating Danny Castellano from Mindy Lahiri and pressed his mouth hard onto hers. But then she is extracting the glass from his hands, giving him an odd once over and asking him if he's had too much to drink.

"Maybe," he answers, and maybe he has.

"You lightweight," she chides good-naturedly, and bumps her hip with his.

She sends him a last smile on her way out, and once she's gone Danny touches the spot where the heat of her had sat so heavily for only a moment, and grins at the place she'd just been standing.

She drives him crazy he thinks, shaking his head and following her back into the party.

* * *

_I've been so worried about posting this because the actual Danny/Mindy relationship is so perfect I'm afraid of messing with it. Tell me what you think?_


End file.
